The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-02-18
RESTING The SOIL.
Late Researches Proving That 1t Does Not
Pay to Let Land Lay Idle,

Late Researches Proving That 1t Does Not
Pay to Let Land Lay Idle.
Many farmers believe that soil
gains fertility by resting from cultiya-
ton, and that fields thrown out of
cultivation for a few years viii be re-
stored to at least moderate condition
of fertility without the use of manure.
This we think is mistake, and as a
general principle is wrongly based up
on ar erroneous view of the facts in
the case.
Formerly this belief was more prev
alent than it is now in England, where
summer fallows in common use were
based upon it, and it is still widely
prevalent in the South, where the old
field system is in vogue, and is really
most pernicious and costly error In
the North this idea has been
abandoned, and in the West it has not
yet come under consideration, because
the time has not yet come for it.
In England it has long been supposed
by farmers that the land needed rest
at certain intervals, and so one year
was devoted to what was called a sum-
mer fallow. But if we suppose that
this fallow was rest we should be
greatly mistaken, for on the contrary
it was period of most laborious cult
ure, two or three plowings and several
intermediate borrowings being given
to break up the soil and render it fine
and mellow in preparation for the
sowing of wheat crop. In some cases
very liberal application of manure
was plowed under and thoroughly
mixed with the soil by the subsequent
tillage. In fact, the popular adage
"ti'1age is MANURE was the fund
amcutal principle of the practice of the
bare fallow, so that the idea of resting
the land or of leaving it to recuperate
by rest from cultivation was no part of
the English system of alarming.
The old field system of the South is
really one of resting from cultivation,
but it is not at all consistent with the
idea eGnd belief that the land gains
fertility by resting. The Southern old
fields ere abandoned to weeds and
natural. growth of timber, and it is the
accumulated debris of several years of
this growth which really fertilizes the
soil. When land is thrown out of cult
walton and all vegetation is suppressed,
and the surface is not disturbed, it
wastes and. loses fertility. The surface,
hardened by the beating rains and
baked by the scorching sun, absorbs
little water, and is washed by that
which falls upon it and flows from it
to the dearest streams. The Southern
streams are discolored by this washing
after every heavy rain, and thousands
of toms of soil are carried off from the
uplands and deposited upon the over
flowed bottoms, which are thus
rendered exceedingly fertile. 1t. fol-
lows, of course, that this access of
fertility to these bottoms is gained at
the expense of the uplands thrown out
of cultivation and left to rest.
But when an old field has borne sew
eral crops of the prevalent weeds-the
broom sedge, crab grass, pennyroyal
and other plants which spring up upon
it-or has become covered with ten
years growth of timber, the gradual
accretions of organic matter thus made
contribute large quantity of plant food
to the soil; and this in it's decay pro-
ducGs available nitrogen and much car
bonic acid, which exerts solvent effect
upon the mineral particles of the soil,
and thus, both directly and Indirectly,
this sort of rest increases the fertility
of the soil. 1t is not rest; in reality it
is simply change of crop, and exem-
plifies the truth of the ancient belief
referred to by Virgil, who wrote
+'Thus also the fields rest, the produce
being changed; but" he adds, ''there
is no favor to the unplowed land" and
thus showed that in those times the
practice of bare fallow without till
age was not considered good prac-
tice. Sir j. B. Lawes and several other
exl3erimenters whose competence and
carefulness are not questioned have
shown that the bare soil constantly
loses fertility by the passage through
it of the rain water, which carries off
the dissolved matter as soon as it is
formed by the slow decomposition of
the mineral particles.
The modern practice of good farmers
has shown conclusively that the soil
does not need rest; that cultivation
effects a constant reduction of portion
of the soil to soluble condition in
which it may become fit food for plants.
Moreover, it has been long believed
that the separation of oxygen from the
atmosphere by certain effects of a finely
divided soil releases an equivalent por-
ton of the nitrogen, which forms four
fifths of the bulk of the air from it's
mixture with the oxygen, and that this
nitrogen becomes available, at least, in
some part, as food for plants. Then it
follows that a cultivated crop, such as
roots, corn, beans, potatoes, cotton, to-
bacco, is restful to the soil to q certain
extent if an adequate quantity of ma
nure is supplied to make up for the
direct demands of it upon the land; or
if clover or grass is grown, that this
crop also rests and refreshes the land
by its effect upon it, which leaves a
residue of fertility after the require
ments of the crop have been supplied.
" Y Times.
improvement of Poultry.
The introduction of fresh blood into the
stock of fowls kept on the farm is quite
as beneficial, in its way, as it is in the
swine herd. Keeping the best cockerels
produced on the farm from year to